My Feedback.

I want to start by saying that I enjoy the game, it's fun and has a lot of potential! I Have been very impressed with the state it's in for an alpha since I started testing 3 wipes ago. I have only ever played as a Sniper assassin. My brother plays as a crusader, so I get some feed back from him too.

So most of this is from before the feb 16 patch. Not much from what I want to say has been changed from that patch, and while I had intended to post this much sooner, I feel I need to post it now before the game gets released.This is just my honest and as comprehensive feedback as I can manage for most aspects of the game that I feel are important.

Most of this, is about the very core, which hasn't changed much. I am very concerned after finding out the planned release date. When I saw the date, and even the new delayed date, I was shocked. To my knowledge the game was still in alpha, and needed to be. All it's flaws could be forgiven since for an alpha, the game was great, and faith it would be fixed easy to maintain.

Then there was a letter saying not only is it going to be released in a couple months (at the time, this post is late I know, I'm a busy man.), but there won't be any more patches to update the build before then (I know that has since changed and we will now get 1 more, but the point still stands). So we wont even get to test it properly. The point of an alpha is that you are willing to rip the whole game down to it's foundations if needed and start again. While that isn't really necessary I still feel the game deserved it's alpha state and that some of the core concepts do need to be changed.

It just seems from my point of view that the game is going from alpha to release, which is not how things should go. I seriously hope it all works out for the best but am concerned the money ran out and it is being rushed to release. This runs the risk of killing it, since a rushed and incomplete game will only turn a majority of people off, leaving only those of us that are either serious fanppls of WH40K or those that still have faith the game will be improved after launch to play it.

Anyway, feedback.

First up the controls:

They are fine for the most part. After the wipe before last, I started playing again, and found which button for which skill on the same weapon had all changed. I was just finally getting used to it and the feb 16 patch switched it back again. This is just annoying. Please at some point implement a system that allows us to choose which skill is which hot-key for the individual weapons. Changing the key binds in the options for 1 weapon can make it really inconvenient for another (on switch) and isn't really a suitable workaround IMHO.

Also while this is just a dream maybe make it so each weapon has 5 or 6 available skills, but still only the 4 slots to take into missions. Give us some more choice and customization per weapon. Happy for this to be a more long term goal though.

Also I feel allowing the arrow, or other assigned keys for movement to allow said movement to be performed while shooting your weapons would be a great addition. Taking a shot with my bolt gun should not lock me in place. Some skills should definitely require you to stand still (charging a sniper shot for example), but most should be able to be performed while moving. This would add much to the game both in terms of realism and diversity. Some builds would be very mobile, while others would be less so for extra dmg or other advantages.

The skills that force movement towards or away from mobs, could either have said movement removed or be left as is, maybe that's just the price you pay for them.

Forced grind/Split leveling system:

The first of my major issues with the game, is that to go from chapter 2 to chapter 3, I am forced to grind up fate and run fate missions to raise my inquisitor rank high enough to find/craft items of sufficient power rating to be able to do the new “story” missions. I have had it argued in cabal chat, that when the full story is implemented this wont be aproblem, but I think if there were going to be bridging missions surely there would be place holders now? I have also been told that getting from 40-50 took 10k fate (since there were no longer any story missions), though this was before the feb 16 changes where apparently fate missions get more expensive but you also gain a small amount from random missions.

Grind for xp and loot is a big part of all diablo esq ARPGs, and I am ok with it in general. Here however it feels forced rather than organic. I don't find the mobs ahead difficult and decide to go back to easier things for abit to try get better gear and level more to progress, instead I am artificially gated from proceeding. It just feels too forced rather than me deciding myself I need to grind. While the recent change of adding a small amount of rank points to random missions should help reduce this problem, I don't feel it will eliminate it. The split of xp is IMHO the main cause of this, with power rating being the secondary cause, and I feel both are mistakes that need to be rectified.

While it would be fine to slant certain types of missions one way or the other. Currently only 2 types of missions (“story” and fate), provide decent amounts of rank xp, while the rest only add account. This feels wrong to me (yes they now give some but it's almost negligible). It just doesn't allow me to play how I want to play, instead I need to play the way that allows me to progress. While that's normal, we all generally play in the best way for us to progress, it's not a decision, and instead feels forced. This needs to change.

Power Rating:

My second major gripe with the game as it stands, is how the power rating system currently works. For the purpose of this post I kept 2 personal void shields for demonstration purposes. Now it needs to be said that like signums, implants, and other such items, the item lvl does nothing to determine what it actually does. Whatever lvl it is, the only thing that's important are the enchants (nothing else changes, they both shield for the same amount).

The first is item lvl28. It has +9.6 hp regen, +4.5% DOT duration, and +9.7% physical dmg. Power rating is shown by the fist to be 60, but it's only 8 points behind my current shield which the fist shows to be 69. The second void shield (not the one I have equipped) is item lvl 33. It has +3.5hp regen, +3.6% DOT duration, and +8.3% physical dmg. Power rating shown by the fist is 68. It is how ever still 2 power rating behind my currently equipped void shield.

This should hopefully, clearly demonstrate 2 problems with the current system. The first and most glaring is that in order to up my power rating and progress, I'm often forced to equip gear that is worse than what I'm wearing, simply because it has a higher item lvl. The second being that the fist icon showing the items rating is not accurate (I hope the second one is easy to fix assuming you keep power rating as a system).

It is my humble opinion that the whole power rating system needs to be scrapped. If it is kept, it needs an overhaul. Ostensibly the system is there to let players “pick their own difficulty” by attempting missions with a much higher rating than they have. This could far more easily be achieved with a slider bar on the briefing window. By doing this content would no longer be gated, missions would be as hard or as easy as the player wants, and the rewards adjusted with the difficulty.

If power rating is kept, I feel it should be removed, from items whose main functions aren't affected by it. A weapon or armour that has a higher power rating has more potential dmg or dmg reduction (and this should be made definite and not random IMHO), so this increase might make it worth equipping one with worse enchants. For items where only the enchants matter however, it makes no sense to arbitrarily declare that this one with worse enchants is better because it's higher lvl than the one you have.

Either that, or much more weight needs to be given to how well the enchants rolled, compared to the maximum allowed for that item lvl than they seem to now. Lower lvl or not, it should not be possible for an identical item with worse enchants to be rated higher than the other simply because it's higher lvl. Gear should be rated on it's merits not it's lvl if you insist on keeping this system.

Finally, if power rating is kept, some should be given per skill point spent. A flat rate of 1 per point with maybe 2 per point above 70% of the overall points available in tree to help reflect that a fair bit of ones power comes from your build rather than just your items would be nice (would allow alts under the split lvling system that you start when maxed to jump ahead quickly). If an items power rating could be slanted to reflect how well it synergises with said build/weapon that would be awesome but probably dreaming on that one.

Reasons Above Suggestions Would Only Enhance Game play (IMHO):

So if we combine the above “problems”, (I feel they're problems others may not), I feel the solutions are pretty much all in the game and only need a few tweaks to solve. If power rating was done away with, but the “higher lvl gear can be better” system is kept, a slider bar is introduced to allow the player to simply pick the difficulty of any mission they are doing, and all missions gave a reasonable base of all resources as reward (obviously modified for map size and difficulty chosen), little would be lost . The influence system and story line already gives a reason to go to different systems, expanding on it to include influence for the shown factions would give a reason to run missions on certain worlds. Fate missions should be mostly about loot but give a solid bonus amount of rank xp (still best source), but it should be like 50% higher than a normal mission rather than the current 8 or 9 times higher it currently is. Then you could slant (say 25% higher than base), just for example, relic missions towards loot (those guarded chests might have more than just relics in em (or the relics might actually be useful as weapons for me), purge missions towards account xp, clue hunting (get info from terminals) towards rank xp, and so on. Maybe worlds that have a high ecliesiarchy(spelling?) presence would give bonus fate per mission, while royal houses would give credits, to enhance the 'diff missions, diff worlds give diff things' to encourage movement through the “World”. This would allow me to play whatever missions I so chose (other than story). Even if I don't enjoy and choose not to do the type that will give best rewards for what I need. I will still get there, it will just take a bit longer.

I am an avid crafter, in whatever rpg I play. The choice to allow unmodified green crafts to be produced instantly was great. It greatly enhanced crafting's usefulness, especially in getting the power rating required to progress. I have however found that at the moment at least, adding special materials for the “optimised” crafting either does absolutely nothing, or again is too esoteric to be understood by someone that isn't interested in doing 1000+ crafts to try and figure it out. I have often had greens produced instantly come out better than greens (and purples) of the same item I put lots of the special mats into, even including the purple mats that take purple mats to make.

At this point the“optimizes by x% such and such” seems to do nothing. I know that most, need to be placed next to enchants. None of them seem to do squat though. Maybe optimizes just means better chance to roll higher, and I have just continually been unlucky on ones that get enchants I want, but it really seems you are better off just putting in basic mats and letting it go. Some far better tutorial windows that fully explain all the terms and rules and effects and how to use them are needed. Also they need to have a more noticeable effect on the end product. ATM anything other than insta produced greens seems pointless.

Lastly, the time it will take to produce, when adding, special mats or crafting purples, never matches what I was told it will take. I can't tell you the number of times I have hit craft on an item and it says it will take 45 mins, only to hit craft, look at the timer and see 1.5 hours of time left till completion. Seems like it should be fairly east to fix.

I like the ideas behind the crafting, I like the upgrading of certain aspects through the tech tree. I like so much about the system overall, but it needs work or better explanation. I would also like to see a system where I can exclude certain enchants or types of enchants when crafting an item. I mean If I am going to have someone make something for me, they should be able to make something suitable. If I go to a blacksmith and tell him I favour speed over force, stab over slash, he isn't going to make me a heavy broadsword is he?

Cabals:

Overall good system. I like it. A few, small problems though. Every member of a cabal in a party that does a cabal mission should count towards the total, so 4 together run 1 mission, it counts as 4 missions completed. At the moment to get “cabal assassination missions” (just an example) complete, you are best off getting everyone to run them individually. The idea should be to encourage group play within the cabal not prevent it.

The other major gripe I have, with the cabal system is that advancement is completely at the mercy of rnjesus. Some of the missions you can get are really easy, like donate crafting mats or collect items from mobs that spawn in most missions in great numbers. Others are almost impossible. Gob forbid your lvl 1 cabal (with only your few mates as members) gets as it's first mission the “collect books from word bearers sorcs”. No way will you get that done in a week. Even if you have full members it's a challenge because word bearer sorcs are rare AF, even if you focus exclusively on word bearer missions. So if things don't go your way, your cabal's advancement is locked down until the weekly reset through no fault of your own, and the option to re-roll quests isn't available until cabal lvl 4 (?) if you focus that path.

Something needs to be done. Maybe letting the cabal master, or lords (through vote if master is off line) to select from 3 choices would help to at least alleviate if not eliminate the problem. Making it so the harder to complete missions aren't in the possible mission pool until the cabal gets a few ranks and more members would be better.

Making it so that cabal missions spawn in all sectors, rather than just chernobog would also be a help. I mean when you hit high lvl and are working on influence in a certain sector then realise you now have to go back to the very first system and run missions there for a few days to finish a cabal objective just makes it a little too disruptive to normal play IMHO.

Overall I really likethe skill point system. I like the path of exile “lots of smallboni that add up” type system, and find that it being divided intodefined areas rather than a massive sprawling path you can spendhours planning and still make wrong turns is great.

A minor issue however,is that some trees have specific build or weapon type abilities onthe main path, with great general stuff and/or the “main” talent,behind them. The best example I remember, is in the critical hitstree. The path that starts upper right and descends towards themiddle has “+2% crit chance to melee skills”. Branching off thatspecific skill and not on the path is “+5% to crit chance ifsuppression status is green”.

Surely anyone could seethat it's a bad idea to lock something so valuable to anyone that isgoing for a crit build behind a play style specific talent? I play asa ranged sniper. I seriously want that talent, but to get it I needto pick a talent that is useless to me, since I never go melee. Thusunless the intention is to make people waste skill points (which isis a very bad intention if it is thus) it just seems like poor designto place the melee crit talent in front of that talent. Not tomention that by the same token even if I am just after the middle“super skill” from the tree, many are on the main path to it.

There are many otherexamples that I cant remember right now but srsly please have somepeople look at the skill trees and ensure that build/weapon typespecific talents are not on the main path towards the “super”talent of a skill tree's path, nor in front of great general talents.Preventing skill wastage should be a priority. I have seen somepeople complaining that many points already feel like a waste to getto the good ones so maybe some of them could do with a small bumpupwards, but I personally feel it currently works fine other thanwhat I have said.

Priority Assignments:

So currently I amlimited in how many I can do, and so far as I can tell, the resultsare completely random. However many missions it involves in the endit seems about 50/50 if you will gain 5 glory for the whole thing, orlose 5 glory. The chance of success and collateral damage bars areeither completely random or affected by things too esoteric to befigured out by normal people just interested in playing the game.Often you get no choices that will increase your chances of success,just question marks. Sometimes you get one that does, but has aquestion mark on collateral dmg and the ratio the assignment startswith is what you end up with in the end. Rare indeed were the times Imanaged to get the success higher than the dmg if the success startedlower (in fact I don't think it ever happened).

First, if anything I dowill affect the success or dmg bar, I need to be told. Mostly though,I would much prefer an actual roleplay situation where for example Iroam around a hab centre myself and encounter difsituations/conversations where my choices actually affect things(though again I should always be informed or have the option beinginformed what choices will affect what). The dmg vs success shouldalso be more of a personal reputation thing than affect my rewardsthing. I mean, we are talking about an order that would ratherexterminatus an entire planet than let heresy and corruption takeroot there. I don't think they would really be too concerned withcasualties and such if the job gets done.

Sure theoreticallythere is a whole sector here to explore. However in practice atm itis basically a map with a series of instances. There is really noopen world about it at all. While what it is is fun, I personallywould like to see hub area's for every planet or at least the mainpopulation centre planet of every system, with conversations androleplay opportunities for each one. Areas to explore and findmissions through investigation rather than just the star map “quickmissions”. I am not saying the star map quick missions should beremoved by any means, they are great and allow one to pretty muchjump straight in and do 1 or a few missions in little time which isawesome. I am just saying that non combat orientated explorationshould be available for each world, where our choices inconversations and how we handle missions gained there might affectour reputation and such would be nice. Put more rp into this rpg.This is one of the main points I feel will suffer with the seemingspeed of the release schedule. This is another of the major drawbacks I find in this game, and now there's no time to add it.

Loot:

This is one of the fewthings I feel suffered greatly in the feb 16 patch. I didn't reallyneed to worry about loot before. I just checked out what I got afterthe mission, so the action didn't slow down. I have seen the peoplecomplaining that they don't get the “oh shiny!” moments but Ifelt those came between missions when you checked out all the loot.The only problem being that not all the loot is shown if too much iscollected. You have to open your inv after and see what you actuallygot. IMHO unless we are able to change equipment during a missionthen showing me what it does/is achieves little.

While I personallywould like it if we could, I also understand the philosophy behindthe current system, which makes each mission more tactical. “Thisis my build and load out for this mission, can I get it done?” Yourcommander can't change equip mid fight in table top 40k, you need topick it before hand (never played the inquisitor rpg). Making me haveto run over it though distracts from the fun IMHO and I would like anOPTION to have loot done the old way if I prefer it.

I feel that if therewards screen showed everything I collected during the missionincluding that relic I didn't notice that dropped, then the shinymoments would be there.

I felt that the feb 16patch that reduced damage of specials but increased their hp was astep in the right direction. It made debuff and buff with certaineffects builds more viable compared to pure big hits since the bossesmight live long enough for them to actually matter (previously dotbuilds for example had little use, nothing had the hp for it matterover just hitting/critting really hard). I never encountered thesuper regen I saw others complaining about so not sure if it wasfixed or if my tendency to not do missions 50+ above my rating justkept it manageable for me. I still feel more hp, less regen as asurvival method for bosses and specials would be a better thing thanmore regen. We want them to take awhile to kill and bechallenging, we don't want their hp to never move and feeluseless.

Well that's about it.Hope some people read and discuss. Sorry it's an essay but, true feedback needs to be.

I have not actually played as I am aconsole gamer(XB1), so I can not attest to what has or has not been addressed, but have you looked at the list of changes in Patch 0.8.0? It is a massive list and a lot has been changed, updated or removed. Just thought I would mention it since your post is from before that patch.

Also, in case you were unaware, there IS a Beta, I am pretty sure it is currently open. They have even released a Beta hot patch already.

Skill trees- to be fair, Path of Exile has that same problem with skills, as did FFX as far as I can remember. So I agree with you 100% that relevant playstyle skills need to be grouped with skills of the same type. This should have been addressed in these types of skill trees when they were introduced, hopefully Neocore can take the system and improve it so players are not forced to take irrelevant skills.